The Moto Z2 Play got everything you wished before the buy, and most probably, you would not wish for anything more. Still need more? You got the Moto Mods!

There is one thing that can be confidently said about Motorola is that it has got its loyal customers, and the best part is the company hardly disappoints them. Conforming to its DNA, the Schaumburg, Ilinois born company, has always endeavoured to bring new taste to telecommunication technology since ts inception. Fortunately the habit of being better than the best has not died down despite numerous ups and downs it has seen throughout its journey, and even after taken over by Lenovo.

The recent Moto Z series of smartphones is a classic example of the kind of innovation that can be brought into handheld devices. With the Z series, and with Moto Z, Motorola brought modularity to smartphones and the company launched a handful of Moto Mods that can be linked to the smartphone to heighten the customer experience. The various mods launched last year included JBL outdoor speaker and Hasselblad camera that enhanced customer experience by providing crystal clear sound and professional photography with the smartphones.

A year later the company launched its second gen Moto mods along with a new device, in the Z series, the Moto Z2 Play. If one looks carefully, it becomes evident how Motorola understands its customers and offer them solutions anticipating much ahead in the future. Let’s see what the Moto Z2 Play has to offer.

Look And Feel

The Z series Motorola phones that were launched last year having modular capability included the Moto Z and Moto Z Play. While the devices got good review as well as reception from the customers, the company felt there is something more should be provided and it added that in the Z2 Play. While the Z was sleek but looked less-elite, and Z Play looked premium but was bulky, the new Moto Z2 Play improved on both its predecessors. The Z2 Play is sleek, looks sophisticated and gives your hand a glam quotient.

The Moto Z2 Play is a phone that you would love to show off from its back. The back panel is made of pure metal that claims the first difference than the current lot of smartphones that come with glass back. The rear panel also shows you the 16-pin mod connector that are made up of 23 carat gold. This is where all the mod magic happens and your mods snap with the smartphone here. The top of the back panel houses the camera module that comprises of the 12 megapixel camera and the dual LED flash. The camera module is supported by a metal ring conforming to the color of the model – in our case, gold. Below the camera module lies the iconic bat logo of Motorola.

One new thing about this device is its antenna design. Unique to this device, the antenna of Z2 Play runs across the back panel and looks really good besides doing best what it supposed to do – catching signal.

The bottom of the Moto Z2 Play has the Type-C USB port and the standard 3.5 mm audio jack. There is no speaker grille but a microphone is placed their for calls. The top portion of the phone houses the SIM tray and a second microphone.

The front side of the Moto Z2 Play boasts of a 5.5 inch super AMOLED display. To the top of the display lie the dual tone LED flash, the ear piece that doubles up as speaker, a proximity sensor and the front camera. Below the display is the fingerprint scanner cum home screen and the third but the primary microphone. The right arm of the phone is blank while the left arm contains the volume key as well as the power button. The power button has a ridged surface that differentiates it from the volume buttons and offers a nice feedback when pressed.

Our Experience : We got a fine gold colored Moto Z2 Play for review. The handling of the device felt superb. The phone, at 5.5 inch, was comfortably pocketable and never felt slippery or getting away from our grip. I tried this phone in rain and because of its design, not a drop of water can enter into the phone and its water repellent nano-coating repels any water that fall on the surface.

The full HD super AMOLED display offered perfect legibility even in the direct sun, so if you are using the phone on broad day light in an open area, you would not find any difference seeing things in the phone nor you have to squeeze your eyes for a perfect view.

The Moto Z2 Play’s unique antenna design comes pretty helpful as it gets better signal strength compared to other smartphones checked at the same location, even at the same spot. The phone has got 3 microphones, placed strategically, to send your voice to the receiver with utmost clarity.

We feel, you would not be disappointed with this phone from the looks, design and handling perspective of the Moto Z2 Play.

The ‘Inside’ Story

The Moto Z2 Play runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 chipset with octacore 2.2 Ghz processor. The processing power gets a boost with its 4GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage space. There is also provision to expand storage space upto 2 TB by using microSD cards. The company, however, did not bring the 3GB/32GB variant of the Z2 Play to India for unknown reasons though that is available internationally. The Moto Z2 Play is a dual SIM 4G smartphone with VoLTE capability as well as offers connectivity through WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC. Means, you can use this phone for ‘tap and pay’ services available at various POS . The phone uses near-stock android and runs Nougat 7.1.1. The Moto Z2 Play carries a 3000 mAh battery with TurboPower charging support.

Our Experience: The octa core 2.2 GHz Snapdragn processor drives the phone pretty smoothly, almost at every situations. Multitasking was never been so easy and the phone does not eat up too much memory for the system, so that you have enough RAM at any given point of time for your tasks.

The fingerprint scanner doubles up as home button and at the same time it has multiple other functions as well. Because of this multipurpose home button, Motorola could able free up some space at the bottom of the phone that was primarily reserved for the Android navigation bar taht usually has the buttons for home, back and recent. This three functions now are taken up by the single multi-purpose home button. A swipe to the left or right gives you different solutions. A long hold on this button would lock the phone, and a longer press would open up the Google assistant for you.

The battery of the phone is of 3000 mAh. Surprisingly, and may be, contrary to your perception, this battery gives more back up time than you hoped. The battery lasted more than 36 hours with heavy usage, I’m sure a normal user, would not use the phone for this kind of use on any regular day. The heavy usage included streaming video on 4G network for 6 hours back to back, gaming, 1 hour of syncing with a smart TV, navigation, and all other regular stuff. After a whole day there was 32% battery still left for the next day.

On a standby mode, the battery survived for more than 10 days.

Moto Z2 Play Camera

Our Experience : The phone has got 12 megapixel rear camera that get assistance from dual tone LED flash, PDAF and laser guided autofocus. So, the multiple auto-focus techniques really help, we got to focus on our subjects in no time and the f/1,7 aperture helped in taking photos in low-light. We did not find any real issue in taking snaps of moving objects either, at times colors looked tad more than natural.

The phone’s camera can be switched on if you twist your hand twice. Its easy but I never found it to be very useful and throughout the use of the device, I could never get acquainted with this practice. The phone has a night mode that gets automatically on when there is low light. Its useful as you do not wish to get back to the camera control while focusing on your subject. But if you want to take control, then there is a pro mode as well.

There is a 5 megapixel front camera supported by single tone LED flash as well. This selfie cam takes good photographs and has got auto night mode as the rear camera. Because of the phone’s wide angle lens, you would be able to take good quality selfie even if you got a big number of members to be snapped.

Overall Experience

With this phone, I did not find anything to crib about. The Moto Z2 Play got everything that you wished before the buy, and most probably, you would not wish for anything more. And if your wishes take wings, you got all the mods at your disposal, like the soundbooster from JBL, professional DSLR camera from Hasselblad, power banks that can be snapped on to your Z2 Play and even a professional gaming console. So, all in all, you are taken care of, fully.